Guest Op-Ed - God at the Center: Reflecting on the Sacred Liturgy

By Veronica A. Arntz

Photo via New Liturgical Movement.

On November 26, 1969, Paul VI gave what many consider the “eulogy” for the
Traditional Latin Mass. In essence, he gave the reasons behind why he thought
the liturgy ought to be “changed.” In this remarkable address, he recognizes
that some individuals will be upset by these changes: “We shall notice that
pious persons are disturbed most, because they have their own respectable way
of hearing Mass, and they will feel shaken out of their usual thoughts and
obliged to follow those of others. Even priests may feel some annoyance in this
respect” (4). He furthermore says, after insisting that our “first obedience is
to the Council” (5), “the introduction of the vernacular will certainly be a
great sacrifice for those who know the beauty, the power, and the expressive
sacrality of Latin” (8). He admits that we “will lose a great part of that
stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing, Gregorian chant” (8).

Paul VI
then offers a reason for these changes, a reason that has negatively affected the
Church, her faithful, her clergy, and especially the liturgy since the reforms
were made. He says that “the answer will seem banal, prosaic,” and indeed, it
is. He continues: “Understanding of prayer is worth more than the silken
garments in which it is royally dressed. Participation by the people is worth
more—particularly participation by modern people, so fond of plain language,
which is easily understood and converted into everyday speech” (11). In other
words, the beauty that has permeated the liturgy for nearly 2000 years—in its
language and actions—is useless to the modern people, who cannot “understand”
and cannot “participate” in that liturgy.

The liturgy ought to be modernized,
it ought to be brought to the level of the modern people, who need to
participate and be part of the action. Even though Paul VI seems to think that
the Latin language will “reflourish in splendor” (14) despite these changes, we
know that, in the past 50 years, this has not been the case. Furthermore, Paul
VI makes the chilling prophecy. He says that there are two requirements to the
new Mass: “a profound participation by every single one present, and an
outpouring of spirit in community charity” (16). These requirements “will help
to make the Mass more than ever a school of spiritual depth and a peaceful but
demanding school of Christian sociology” (16). And indeed, we have seen that
prophecy come true: the liturgy is more about man than about God, and it is
more human than divine, for it is ordered to appeasing man’s emotional needs
rather than his spiritual ones.

Over the
last 50 years, we have lived through the negative effects of this audience and
the changes in the liturgy. Once the liturgy manifested a mutable character,
everyone—laity and priests alike—believed that he or she could change some part
of it to fit his or her personal feelings and beliefs. Those more “pious”
individuals, as Paul VI chooses to call them, have witnessed the devastating
effects and continued to long for more than what was given to them. God, in his
infinite wisdom and divine providence, did not ignore these longings. Although
permission was not strictly necessary, in 1984, Pope John Paul II granted an indult to
bishops so that the faithful could celebrate the Tridentine Mass. And then, in
2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued his motu
proprio, in which he allowed for the celebration of the Tridentine Mass
without any special permission. We have thus begun to see a real restoration of
what was lost to those pious individuals, who were once required to sacrifice
what they loved for those “ordinary” individuals who could not understand the
sacred liturgy, and thereby needed something more “simple.”

But we are
still waiting for a full restoration, and indeed, this restoration will not be
complete until we participate in the Eternal Liturgy in Heaven. For now,
however, there have been many, Benedict XVI included, who have reminded us of
what true liturgy should look like and exhorted us, as laity and as priests, to
do all we can to bring about its celebration. In our own times, Cardinal Robert
Sarah, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments,
recently gave an interview, published by the French magazine Famille Chreteinne, in which he urged God
to be placed back at the center of the liturgy. (For our purposes, we shall use
the translation
provided by the National Catholic Register).
Indeed, a reflection on his words, which echo those of then-Joseph Ratzinger in
his own theology, is essential for us if we wish to bring about a restoration
of true and beautiful liturgy.

Cardinal Sarah says that he wishes to see “the Sacrament of Sacraments put back in the central place,” meaning the Eucharist. Of this desire, he says:

I have witnessed that, very often, our
liturgies have become like theater productions. Often, the priest no longer celebrates
the love of Christ through his sacrifice, but just a meeting among friends, a
friendly meal, a brotherly moment. In looking to invent creative or festive
liturgies, we run the risk of worship that is too human, at the level of our
desires and the fashions of the moment.

In these words, we find that the words of Paul VI’s address
have come true: the liturgy has become merely a “demanding school of Christian
sociology,” a place in which man is at the center, rather than God. The liturgy
has become just a communal meal, rather than a representation of the eternal
sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Ratzinger has this kind of liturgy in mind when he
compares it to the worship of the golden calf in the Old Testament. “Worship
becomes a feast that the community gives itself, a festival of
self-affirmation…The narrative of the golden calf is a warning about any kind
of self-initiated and self-seeking worship” (The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, p. 23). Thus, we see
Sarah echoing Ratzinger’s own words. In order for our liturgy to be true
worship, it cannot be focused on ourselves. It must be oriented toward the
divine, toward the sacrifice of Christ. Liturgy is not so much about the
individual priest celebrating, but about the universal sacrifice and the Great
High Priest, Jesus Christ (cf. Hebrews 4:14).

What ought we to do, so that our liturgy is not focused on
ourselves but on God? Sarah reminds us, as does the Second Vatican Council, “The
importance is not what we do, but what
God does.” He continues: “The liturgy permits us to go out past the walls
of this world. To find the sacredness and the beauty of the liturgy requires,
therefore, a work of formation for the laity, the priests, and the bishops. It is an interior conversion” (emphasis
added). Thus, we see that the liturgy is not
meant to meet our modern needs. The liturgy is meant to take us beyond the world, beyond its
peripheries, for God is outside of time and cannot be contained by the world.
We cannot find the sacredness and beauty due to the liturgy in this world with
its methods—we must look beyond, to the heavenly realm. This is why the
conversion to proper liturgy is interior, because it comes from within the
soul.

Sarah then offers the following remedy: “To put God at the center of the
liturgy, one must have silence: this capacity to silence ourselves [literally:
‘shut up’] to listen to God and his word. I believe that we don’t meet God
except in the silence and the deepening of his word in the depths of our
heart.” How other-worldly this remedy is. Participation in the liturgy, then,
is not restricted to “having something to do” and being physically a part of
the celebration. Rather, participation is more importantly about a spiritual
participation, which often occurs in silence.

God speaks in the interior of our
hearts. To hear him, we must be silent, and this is of utmost importance in the
liturgy. Indeed, this echoes Ratzinger’s words in Feast of Faith: “If there is to be a real participation actuosa, there must be silence” (Ignatius Press, p.
72). Ratzinger adds that he does not believe the entire canon needs to be
recited aloud every time (Ibid). Indeed, this is the direct opposite of the way
liturgy is often celebrated today.

When asked
how to bring about this interior conversion concretely, Sarah responds very
simply: we must physically reorient our position of prayer—we must offer the
liturgy toward the east. Of praying toward the east with all (including the
priest) in the same direction, he says:

By this manner of celebrating, we
experience, even in our bodies, the primacy of God and of adoration. We
understand that the liturgy is first our participation at the perfect sacrifice
of the cross. I have personally had this experience: in celebrating thus, with
the priest at its head, the assembly is almost physically drawn up by the
mystery of the cross at the moment of elevation.

Thus, because man is both body and soul, his body must
mirror what is occurring interiorly. His body must be turned toward the Lord,
and as such, he is physically and spiritually anticipating the Second Coming of
Christ. If we wish to restore a reverence in the liturgy, then, as Sarah says,
it is necessary that our bodies follow what our souls are doing. If our souls
are oriented toward Christ, then so must our bodies. It is likely that, if our
bodies are not oriented toward Christ, then our spirit will have a more
difficult time; we are more likely to fall into distraction and be disconnected
from the sacrifice on the altar. Indeed, when the priest “faces” the people,
Ratzinger finds that there is an emphasis on the presider, rather than on
Christ.

The priest “becomes the real point of reference for the whole liturgy.
Everything depends on him. We have to see him, to respond to him, to be
involved in what he is doing. His creativity sustains the whole thing” (Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 80). He
continues: “The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the
community into a self-enclosed circle” (Ibid). Thus, we see the relevance of
our discussion in the beginning, that the liturgy is more focused on man than
it is on God. If we do as Cardinal Sarah has asked, and reorient our position
in prayer in the liturgy so that all are facing toward the east, then we will
see (in time) that God, not man, is at the center of liturgy.

Contrary to
what Paul VI proclaimed in his address, we have indeed seen a rejection of the
teachings of Vatican II, as Sarah shows in his interview. Not only did the documentSacrosanctum concilium say that the
use of Latin ought to remain (cf. 36, 54, 101) and that Gregorian chant is “especially suited to the Roman
liturgy” (116), topics we were unable to address here specifically, but it also never said anything about the
priest facing the people. Thus, in the liturgy of Paul VI, we have seen a
rejection of the conciliar teachings, not “obedience” to them, as he called
for. If we wish to be truly obedient to the conciliar texts, then we ought to
follow the wisdom of Ratzinger and Sarah. Indeed, if we do not restore the
beauty proper to the liturgy, then we risk apostasy. As Ratzinger says, if
liturgy is oriented toward man, “it becomes an apostasy from the living God, an
apostasy in sacral disguise” (Spirit of
the Liturgy, p. 23).

In the final analysis, if the Church is the bride of
Christ, then Christ must be at the center. As Cardinal Sarah explains, “For us,
the light is Jesus Christ. All the Church is oriented, facing East, toward
Christ: ad Dominum. A Church closed
in on herself in a circle will have lost
her reason for being. For to be herself, the Church must live facing the
living God” (emphasis added). Thus, a restoration of the liturgy, particularly
in its physical orientation, will assist in bringing about a restoration of the
life of the Church, for the whole Church, in the sacred liturgy, will be
oriented toward Christ and united in prayer with him, awaiting his return and
the eternal liturgy in Heaven.